Pork Potsticker Dumplings

Preparation: 30 Minutes

Cooking Time: 20 Minutes

Pork dumplings are a fantastic oriental dish that i love. You can buy them frozen from your local Asian supermarket and they are lovely, but relatively expensive! This recipe is cheap, packed full of flavor and super easy to make. I'm using pre-made dumpling pastry that you can buy pre-rolled, pre-floured and are found in the Asian supermarket. and this speeds the process along. If you want to make fresh pastry, its simply boiling water and flour and a pinch of salt but it will add an hour or more to your cooking time!! This recipe is my take on them, and will easily put a rest to your craving for oriental food! These freeze great too, so any that you don't cook can be sealed in a freezer bag and kept in there for up to three months.

Beef Stroganoff

Preparation: 15 minutes 

Cooking Time: 3 hours

This wonderful mushroomy dish is my take on the classic Beef Stroganoff. This rich beef stew originally hails from Russia (if you couldn't guess by the name). This dish comes together simply and with just a few key ingredients. If you've never had this dish you will love it, and if you are familiar with it give this one a go, it won't disappoint!

Doolin Craft Beer and Roots Festival 2015

Now in its third year, The newly re-christened "Doolin Craft Beer and Roots Festival" is only getting bigger and better. This year it boasted over 20 craft breweries and to compliment the beer, a live band every hour and not to mention the food! Oh god, the smell was amazing. This is the first year I heard about the festival, let alone any festival like this held in Co. Clare. Being a Clare man, it seemed only natural to drag the girlfriend Aisling aka Pale Girl and meet up with one of my best friends to make it a weekend worth remembering.

Chilli Dog

Preparation: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 minutes

This is the ULTIMATE leftovers dish. From fridge to table in just 15 to 20 minutes and can be prepared just as easily in the kitchen or on a BBQ. The main ingredients being a leftover pot of Chilli, and your favorite dog, or sausage. For the authentic "dog" taste i would recommend a good sized German style sausage (but not cheap frankfurters). Alternatively a nice steak and black pepper sausage from your local butchers would be absolutely amazing. This works perfectly well with a nice freshly made chilli, but is ten times better if it a day or two old.

Habanero Corn Salsa

Preparation: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

If you don't know it by now, I love spicy food. This salsa is super sweet, spicy, fresh and it makes the perfect dip. Once you put this on the table it will be gone in a matter of seconds, so make sure you have have enough ingredients for a couple of batches! The habanaro chilli is EXTRA SPICY but it has an unmistakable flavor that makes this salsa wonderful, but be warned, it's your decision to go seeds in or seeds out!!

Chilli Con Carne

Preparation: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 3 hours

This classic is one of my favorites! The name literally translates to my favorite things: Chilli with Meat! This recipe is all about building layers of flavour and although it isn't quite a quick recipe, believe me when i say it is worth the effort. The best thing about a chilli is that the leftovers taste even better (if there's any left that is!!). This goes great over rice but i prefer it with chips!

Vegetable Stuffed Peppers

Preparation: 10 Minutes

Cooking time: 40 Minutes

We all love peppers, but we don't give them all the attention we should. Every once in a while, the pepper deserves to be its own dish as opposed to being just another ingredient used to make something else taste better. You can eat these Stuffed Peppers with a knife and a fork, or you can pick it up with your hands and get stuck right in, which makes these guys perfect for BBQ season, and it's a great vegetarian option. This recipe can be cooked on a BBQ just as easy as in the oven, so make sure that you keep these in mind on the next sunny day.